Kroesing, Frederice Leo "Fred" or "Frederic"

1890-1968 | Businessman

Frederice “Fred,” or “Frederic” Leo Kroesing was born on February 14, 1890 in Riedishhelm, in Alsace, then part of Germany, but now in northeastern France. He immigrated to the United States in 1921 and, as a trained chef and baker, worked in various New York hotels before taking a job as chef in a southeast Alaska cannery. He then moved to the state of Washington.

On April 2, 1926, Kroesing was married to Ida Emilia Johnson in Mount Vernon, Washington. She was born in Monson, Maine, in 1893. She was working in a cannery in Anacortes, Washington when she met Fred. [1]

In 1928, the Kroesings moved to Anchorage, and Fred was hired as a cook at the Alaska Railroad Hospital. On the side, he started raising mink, as mink farming was considered a good investment. In 1938, he traded some mink pelts for land at 10th Avenue and M Street for his mink farm. However, the noise made by aircraft landing on and taking off from the adjacent airstrip between 9th and 10th Avenues, caused the mink to kill their young, forcing him to leave the mink business.

Kroesing had built a small apartment house on M Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues, on the outskirts of Anchorage. After the end of World War II, he built a cold storage plant there and it was eventually named 10th & M Lockers and then evolved into 10th & M Seafoods. At 10th & M Lockers, he cleaned and stored fur coats during the summer, and butchered, packaged and stored meat the rest of the year. In 1950, he built the B & C Auto building at 4th Avenue and Eagle Street and another building on 6th Avenue between F and G Streets.

In 1928, Kroesing filed a declaration of intention to become an American citizen in Superior Court, Skagit County, Mount Vernon, Washington. In 1932, his petition for naturalization to become a U.S. citizen was approved by the U.S. District Court at Anchorage.[2]

The Kroesings retired to Anacortes in 1960. Frederice Leo Kroesing died on January 29, 1968, in Anacortes. The given name of "Fredice" appears on his grave marker. Ida E. Kroesing died in October 1972, in Anacortes. They are buried in the Grand View Cemetery in Anacortes.[3] They were survived by their daughter, Diane M. Kroesing. Their son, Lloyd Frederick Kroesing, died in an automobile accident on the Glenn Highway in 1955. His remains are buried at Angelus Memorial Park in Anchorage.